Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A study, often using statistics, that identifies and draws relationships between various characters or people within a specific historical, social, or literary context.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In rhetoric, the description of any one's personal appearance.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun a study of the individuals in a group of people within a specific context and their relationships

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Greek prosōpon, character (pros-, pros- + ōps, ōp-, face; see okw- in Indo-European roots) + –graphy.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the Latin prosōpographia ("description of a person’s appearance”, “description of an individual’s life"), from the Ancient Greek πρόσωπον (prosōpon, "face”, “person") + -γρᾰφῐ́ᾱ (-graphiā, "-writing”, “-drawing"). See also prosopon.

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Examples

  • In the mid-twentieth century, another major contribution was a large project in what the Greeks called prosopography, or collective biography.

    Champlain's Dream David Hackett Fischer 2008

  • In the mid-twentieth century, another major contribution was a large project in what the Greeks called prosopography, or collective biography.

    Champlain's Dream David Hackett Fischer 2008

  • John Frazee within the home by utilizing a prosopography of New York's organized men between 1800 and 1840.

    Advocating The Man: Masculinity, Organized Labor, and the Household in New York, 1800-1840 2006

  • Chapter One employs a prosopography of over one thousand trade unionists and Working Men's Party operatives based on an extensive analysis of census, tax list, probate, insolvency, and other documents.

    Advocating The Man: Masculinity, Organized Labor, and the Household in New York, 1800-1840 2006

  • It can stand with such a tower of prosopography as Sir Ronald Syme's The Roman Revolution 1939, repr. variously.

    Archive 2007-10-01 Patrick J. Smith 2007

  • The Randolphs of Turkey Island: A prosopography of the first three generations, 1650-1806 Ph.D. diss., College of William and Mary, 1977.

    American Connections James Burke 2007

  • The Randolphs of Turkey Island: A prosopography of the first three generations, 1650-1806 Ph.D. diss., College of William and Mary, 1977.

    American Connections James Burke 2007

  • It can stand with such a tower of prosopography as Sir Ronald Syme's The Roman Revolution 1939, repr. variously.

    The Rest Patrick J. Smith 2007

  • V. -- I pardon this epitrope, but pray use less metaphor and more litotes in the prosopography you dedicate to my modest entity --

    Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside Various

  • Despite all differences of approach, he himself wrote only two years ago, "Ronald Syme wrote superbly and authoritatively when he used prosopography to clarify a revolutionary movement ” the upsurge of new social strata under Augustus" (English Historical Review, 1973, p. 115; compare his review of The Roman Revolution reprinted in Secondo Contributo alla Storia degli Studi Classici, 1960, 207 f. and his remarks in Studi Romani 14, 1966, 1-3).

    Bearing Gifts Lloyd-Jones, Hugh 1976

Comments

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  • JM wants to encourage prosopography as a way of keeping up appearances.

    April 2, 2010

  • Group biography or study of a group of people.

    October 10, 2010

  • A single life limned is biography.

    A people detailed is demography.

    If a history lacks

    Both gossip and facts

    It's probably prosopography.

    May 5, 2015

  • The description of a person's appearance

    January 8, 2018